Dante stares at me for a moment and then pinches the bridge of his nose. “Dear God,” he mutters. “My brother is a fucking idiot.”
“Where to, boss?” Alonzo asks as the car ambles toward the parking garage’s exit.
I pull up my phone’s tracking app again. Dante leans over and looks at the screen curiously. “She’s probably going back to her old place,” Dante murmurs thoughtfully.
I nod and tell Alonzo the address. We pull into traffic.
“I should burn that rattrap down,” I growl as I glare at the phone screen. She can’t possibly like being in that tiny apartment more than my house—ourhouse, I mentally correct.
Dante puts a hand over the cell and shoves it away. “What you need to do is get her to like you,” he says.
“She likes me well enough,” I say. “She’s tried cooking for me.” Poorly and with a lot of damage to my stove, oven, and microwave—but the effort was there.
“Does she?” Dante teases. I clench my hand into a fist, feeling the small device creak in my hold. Dante sighs. “Papáwanted you to be married because he worries about you. He’sold-school, so yeah, he thinks that men with wives and families can understand why we do what we do—we’re a family and this is the family business. He wants a continuation of the line.”
“I’m not his real son.” The words are out of my mouth before I can think better of them, and Dante’s expression shifts from understanding to cold.
“Don’t ever say that in front of him,” he orders. “You may not be Luciani by blood, but you are my goddamned brother, and you are the son of my father’s heart. I may be his heir, but you are his oldest. He loves you.”
Shame and old guilt bite into my chest, and my hold on the phone loosens slightly. I sit back against the car seat. “You’re right,” I tell him. “I’m sorry.”
Dante eyes me for a moment before speaking again. “Papáonly ordered you to get married because he didn’t want you to be alone for the rest of your life,” he says. “And yes, before you ask me, he told me this himself. You’ve never had family other than us, and he knows you need someone in your life who’s going to be there long after he’s gone. He’s not worried about me getting married because I’ve already told him I’m open to the idea when it’s time. He knows I’ll have my heirs eventually, but you… G, he wanted you to have what he had with my ma.”
I don’t know what to say to that, so I choose not to say anything at all. Instead, I let Dante’s words percolate in my head as Alonzo drives. Admitting that, perhaps, both Dante and Don Luciani are right is as easy as lifting a boat out of the ocean, but I do accept that their actions and demands have never meant me any harm. If anything, only my brother and adoptive fatherhave ever done things for me with no expectations, only because of their love and loyalty.
Thirty minutes later, my cell buzzes with an incoming call as Alonzo slows and turns onto the street of the address I gave him. Daisy’s name flashes across the screen. I answer it immediately, swiping the green button to the side and putting the phone to my ear.
“Daisy.” Her name is the first thing out of my mouth. “Have you called to inform me of your whereabouts? Not to worry, I already—”
“Heeey, Giulio.” I stop talking at the breathy sound of her voice when she elongates her greeting, sounding like a teenager who knows she’s in trouble. “So, Michelle and I had a little accident, and we could use your help.”
All at once, my body goes cold and then red-hot. “What’s happened?” I demand, flashing my eyes up to Alonzo and flicking two fingers his way in a gesture he knows.
He pulls over into an open space next to the cracked sidewalk.
“I didn’t mean to,” Daisy murmurs. “I really didn’t, but he had Michelle, and I thought he was going to kill her, and to be fair, everyone says that one of the dangers of carrying a gun is getting it taken from you and used against you, so technically—this is his fault. If he hadn’t threatened us, then I wouldn’t have had to—”
Frustration pours through me. “Daisy!” I bark her name, stopping her tirade. “Tell me what happened. Where are you?” Even as I ask the question, my eyes are scanning the streets around us for any sign of her.
In my periphery, I note that Dante is already moving toward his door as I go to mine, the two of us stepping out as Daisy’s reply comes through.
“I wanted to go see Michelle, but I didn’t want you to tell me that I couldn’t, so I snuck out, and I, well…” She drifts off.
Control, Giulio, I remind myself.You are in control.
“Like I said, it was an accident,” she finishes.
Bye-bye, control. Before I can demand information, a second female voice echoes over the line from a distance.
“For fuck’s sake, Daisy! Get to the damn point!” Her friend, I recognize. Michelle. Though we haven’t actually met, the workup I had done included several videos of the woman.
Daisy’s swallow is audible over the line. “I might have, maybe—”
“Oh shit, did he move?” the other woman asks.
There’s a crackle across the line, and then I hear Daisy’s voice, distant and muffled as if she’s pulled the receiver away from her ear and pressed it to her chest. I clench my free hand into a fist as I repress the urge to shatter the phone in my grip. I start jogging up the sidewalk, and Dante follows.
“No, he didn’t move, Chelle. He’s dead. He can’t move.”
